Did you protect your most precious thing?

“We have made of our bodies living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases.” – Plato

Did you protect your most precious thing yet?

What is your most precious thing in life? Answer can vary as per life’s priorities. Freedom, life, knowledge, family, good books, car, home, time, integrity, faith etc. The list can be long and depends on what is important to people.

A precious article to woman can be her wedding ring, a diamond necklace or her wedding dress. Try mishandling your wife’s wedding dress and see what happens. She can be furious enough to give you a lesson on how to handle her valuable things. She is protective for her valuables.

Whatever the precious thing in our life, we protect it. We take extra effort to keep it safe from damage and thieves. Whether it is our freedom, a necklace or any gadget.

But there is something more precious for everyone, and if that is absent, we may not be able to enjoy other valuable things in life to the fullest. Having this one thing in life, can make all our valuable possessions, worth having. So, what is it?

The most precious thing in life is health.

Good Health is the greatest blessing of life. Life is a weary burden to a person of broken health. The richest man with bad health always suffers and groans. He is unhappy despite his great wealth.

Unfortunately, today we don’t protect our health well. Not as enough as we protect our other precious things. We let thieves steal it from us, and in many cases, almost every day.

We might have good intentions to protect our health but food and chemical industry has accumulated so much toxic around us that we keep damaging our health without even knowing.

What we can do in this scenario? I would say: Don’t be ignorant.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is tragedy. And ignorance is illness. It all stems from ignorance -Jim Rohn

Stay informed. Read. Stay updated on what is going on and who are the thieves around you stealing your health. You will find many sitting inside your home. Kick their butt and take control of your health.

Let’s identify the thieves we need to protect our most precious thing from:

Thief # 1 – Bad food

Thief # 2 – Sedentary lifestyle

Thief # 3 – Absence of mental and spiritual health

Thief # 4 – Chemicals and chemical abuse

Let’s discuss briefly how each thief steals away our health, daily.

Thief # 1- Bad Food

Food is fuel for your body. It has a direct impact on how you feel as well as on your overall health. Fast food isn’t necessarily bad, but in many cases, it’s highly processed and contains large amounts of carbohydrates, added sugar, unhealthy fats, and salt (sodium).

In today’s time, list of bad foods is longer than good foods. Bad food is invented every day, and quietly keep adding to the menus in restaurants and keep enticing us with flashy commercials, while we sit and relax in our living rooms. Bad food is everywhere and it is almost impossible to ignore it unless we are highly disciplined. Bad foods come with a huge advantage. Fast food industry knows it well exploit it to the fullest. Advantage: Tastes good and cheap.

These foods are often high in calories yet offer little or no nutritional value. When fast food frequently replaces nutritious foods in your diet, it can lead to poor nutrition, poor health, and weight gain. Tests in lab animals have even shown a negative effect in short duration diets. Being overweight is a risk factor for a variety of chronic health problems including heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

Eating junk foods gives you extra calories and gives the big food corporations extra profits. Eating anything with an ingredient that you cannot spell easily means you need to read those food labels more carefully.

“Human beings evolved as a walking entity, exploring the world on our feet,” says James Levine, MD, author of Move a Little, Lose a Lot.

Physical Inactivity is Hazardous to Your Health.

Physical inactivity has been consistently associated with an increased risk of early death, as well as being associated with a greater risk of diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Although it may also contribute to an increased body mass index (BMI) and obesity, the association with early death is independent of an individual’s BMI.

To measure the link between physical inactivity and premature death, and its interaction with obesity, researchers analyzed data from 334,161 men and women across Europe participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) Study. Between 1992 and 2000, the researchers measured height, weight and waist circumference, and used self-assessment to measure levels of physical activity. The participants were then followed up over 12 years, during which 21,438 participants died. The results are published in the American Journal of Clinical Exercise

According to this research a brisk 20-minute walk each day could be enough to reduce an individual’s risk of early death

People would say, in this busy life, we don’t have time. Well, it’s a tradeoff. In exchange for feeling better, having fewer medical problems, and living longer. The tradeoff is that you have to sacrifice a certain amount of time and recreational indulgencies.

Another excuse might be, we cannot motivate our brain enough to exercise. I would say: declare a war on that part of brain that produces creative excuses for not exercising and that it must be a lifetime war.

The sedentary gang like to argue that even if you exercise religiously, you could still catch a bad break and dye young. And they are right. But you must see the odds. I would say, odd are in favor of more exercise than less.

Stack the odds in your favor. Exercise moderately to continue it as a lifelong routine. Fanaticism leads to quitting while moderation gives the best chances of excerising throught life.

Thief # 3 – Absence of mental and spiritual health

We talk a lot about physical health but not much about mental and spiritual health. What does mental and spiritual health means? Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.

Spiritual health and wellness involves values and beliefs that provide a purpose in our lives. Leading one to strive for a state of harmony with oneself and others while working to balance inner needs with the rest of the world. The National Wellness Institute says spiritual wellness follows the following tenets:

It is better to ponder the meaning of life for ourselves and to be tolerant of the beliefs of others than to close our minds and become intolerant.

It is better to live each day in a way that is consistent with our values and beliefs than to do otherwise and feel untrue to ourselves.

Positive mental health allows people to: Realize their full potential,

Cope with the stresses of life

Work productively

Make meaningful contributions to their communities

Ways to maintain positive mental health include:

Connecting with others

Staying positive

Getting physically active

Helping others

Getting enough sleep

Developing coping skills

My spiritual belief resonates with one of my favorite author James Altucher who says “Do something emotionally good for yourself”. He suggests that if someone is a drag on you, cut them out or minimize your time with them, and if they lift you up, spend more time with them. Be honest without being hurtful and never doing anything you don’t want to do. He doesn’t go to weddings.

Practice something spiritual, which can include praying, meditating, being grateful, forgiving, or studying a spiritually uplifting text.

If you cannot do so many things then just “Be Good & Be Useful”.

Thief # 4 – Chemicals and Chemical Abuse

In the book “Tox-Sick”, Suzanne Somers write about the toxins in our body, diseases caused by toxins and the doctors who can help. Author Somers identifies six areas of toxic that are listed below:

Plastic and other Chemicals

The low-fat food movement and other processed, sugar-filled foods

Toxic mold

The overuse of pills

GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)

EMFs (Electric and Magnetic fields) and Cell Phones

It is important for the sake of our family’s health to stay abreast on what’s going on in the industry and what are the good intentions and what are bad one.

How can we control?

Read. Research the foods you buy, read the labels, know the toxic terms and don’t buy them. This applies to each article you buy for your home. Don’t buy toxins into your home. Clothes are toxic too and you might have a closet full of toxic clothes that are harming your health slowly but surely. You might be putting toxins on your body every day. Save your skin and read more here

Other area of severe health damage is chemical abuse. Chemical abuse includes over-use of prescription drugs as well as narcotic addiction. Council on Chemical Abuse states- drug and alcohol addiction is the use and abuse of a substance despite experiencing negative consequences from this behavior. Use of the substance is required for an addicted individual to feel normal. Addiction is considered a brain disease because drugs change both the brain’s structure and how it works. These brain changes can be long lasting, and can lead to the harmful behaviors seen in people who abuse drugs.

Our body is not a chemistry lab. Protect it from chemical filled foods and chemical abuse. Get help if you need. There is plenty available, we just have to ask for it.

So, start today and start small. Small changes in lifestyle can go a long way.

Your body is your temple. You do your body good, your body will do you good.